Monday, August 07, 2006

Joy by the Foot

After spending most of Saturday indoors wrestling with my muse, and having little to show for it other than a busted lamp and a couple of bite marks, I decided to head downtown and pick on Buzz. That's always good for yuks.

Buzz (cute-and-available-to-boys) is presently employed in the men's department of the Marshall Field's at snooty Water Tower Place on Michigan Avenue. Is there, I ask you, a greater joy on earth than a buddy who can tell you when Hugo Boss is going to go on sale? Perhaps a buddy who can tell you when the cashmere yarn is going to go on sale, but we're talking shades of difference.

I arrived near the end of his shift, met his (cute-and-available-to-boys) coworker Charlie, and made him wait on me while I threatened in loud tones of voice to have him fired. Good times. Then we hung out for a bit at a coffee shop in the atrium and dished the world in general. I finished my first sock all the way to the end of the toe, with only the Kitchener left undone.

Knitters: what would you do in this situation, sitting in an uppity bistro surrounded by North Shore housewives and well-heeled bourgeois tourists? Why, you'd do what I did. I took off one boot and tried on the sock.

It speaks to Buzz's remarkable sense of empathy that he, who does not knit, did not even blink. On the contrary, he expressed great joy at my accomplishment and even whipped out his camera phone to record the moment.

I thought the starchy couple at the next table was going to collapse into a heap of Ralph Lauren woven pastel separates. Honestly, some people are too easily mortified. It's not as though I put my foot on their plate of rugelach.

The Kitchener was completed the next day, following the traditional pattern of:

Try it once, feeling confident, and screw it up royally.

Undo it at the rate of three vile oaths per stitch.

Turn off the television, the computer, and the phone; draw the shades; arrange seven reference books on the table; take a deep breath; and get it done right.

Try it on. Dance around. And around and around and around and around.

And here's the sock. I've already cast on for the mate. Merriment is unconfined. Are we sure this is legal?

Not exactly a freqenter of Posh establishments ..that said I'd have done the same and enjoyed every minute. I don't have a hero who shocked the establishment by rolling up his shirt sleeves for nothing..how easily shocked is that !

I am confused. Why on earth would anyone care that you were trying on a sock?Hmm, maybe Tucson is more laid-back on the footwear issues, but it seems like there are more important things to give one the vapors.

Great sock, congrats! May you always have a SIP! I've always had one on the needles since I finished my first. Unlike you, I like bright and funky colors...I just started one in purple and red Twinkle Toes from Joslyn that I bought at Camp...fun! Tiny needles though...

I love terrorizing coworkers at work, especially in a straight mall. Ooooh, what's more fun is going to the mall in the middle of suburbia with a cute and available to boys boy and act all smootchy. Fun for all around!

Franklin - lovely sock! I usually manage with ONE detailed reference for Kitchener, but heard of a new technique from Dez at Mambocats. Uses a crochet hook - just start at the end away from the yarn tail, pull a loop from the front needle, then a loop from the back needle through the first loop - continue, alternating between needles. I used it on a shoulder seam, very smooth. Haven't tried it on a sock yet, just thought I'd share.Happy sock-knitting!Beverly

There's nothing much like the joy of a well done Kitchener. Admittedly, I still need a visual reference in front of me to get started, but it's still a lovely feeling to see it all come together. One day I hope to be able to do it blindfolded with my hands behind my back.

What a lovely sock! I would have done the same - pulled it on at once. I always do my Kitchener with swearing, and my copy of EZ's Knitter's Almanac open to the diagram of how-to, mumbling under my breath "down, up, down up"...

First the chest, now the leg? And me, a straight girl. Day-um!Glad you liked the pic of me wearing the Venus de Knitting shirt - check back on the blog - I also have the long sleeved knitting road signs! I have to wait for the weather to get a little cooler. Oh yeah, I'm in Canada - that could be tomorrow...

That Marshall Fields was the scene of weirdo shirt buying for the Nasty German when we were together in Chicago for a week. He handed me $600 and told me to buy him two shirts but only Egyptian cotton.

They were $250 a pop. I have fond memories of going there on a raw December day dressed in ratty jeans and forcing the asshole saleswoman to show me myriad expensive shirts.

Of course, I used to drag around Henri Bendel's as a teenager, dressed pretty much the same way. And outsnoot them all. To the manner born.

Stunning sock, Franklin. I have a great solution for kitchenering woes. Teach C. how to do it. Although I can kitchener (with help of Knitter's Companion, that little spiralbound book), I often look piteous and thrust the open-toed sock at J. He gets to be manly and helpful (as much as one can be with a tapestry needle) and I don't have to kitchener.

You should have put your foot in the RL couple's rugelach. That would have been an apropos response to their undoubtly mental outrage of "Well, I never!" Fabulous job on the sock. Quite the sexy legs, Franklin! Don't lose any stitch markers in those legs ;)

Oh, how I wish I'd been there to see the reactions of the Water Tower crowd!!! To a man, knitting in public, and then trying on his sock with the needles still attached. *sniff* Makes me a little misty at the very thought. I'm probably not going to be dressed nearly as well, and am a whole 'nother sort of "cute and available to boys", but you let me know anytime you need a public knitting buddy!

Kate (whose crazy, sarcastic, non-knitting friends will only let her knit in public at various Chicagoland Starbucks. This is the only thing she misses about her brief life in New Hampshire)

Congratulations on the sock! Tres chic!You might like to check out(1)http://www.astridsdutchobsessions.com.Astrid still has some German sock yarn on sale for $6.50, enough for one pair of socks. Her new winter stock is also arriving.(2) http://www.bastelundhobbykiste.de

Their regular prices are even lower than Astrid's and they have some great promotion packages. As well they have Addi circulars that Cat Bodhi recommends for knitting socks sans ladders.

What on earth is wrong with trying on a sock in public? I do it all the time( what? oh I'm considered eccentric apparently).Nice colourway. I think my DH would be interested in a apir of those. I shall have to go on a yarn hunt:-)

Awesome sock! You know that the fun never stops with socks. Pretty soon there will be dozens around the house, and your significant other will occasionally have the gall to yell, "Enough with the socks! They're getting into everything!"

Try the spiffy "toe chimney" trick in Lucy Neatby's Scintillating Socks book. Takes all the terror out of Kitchener. Of course, if you live for the thrill of living on the edge, keep on grafting those live stitches

I'll delurk from my long-time enjoyment of your blog to say that your sock came out beautifully! I know you weren't keen on the self-striping business, but that colorway is subtle and handsome. And the sock is so expertly stitched. Hooray for you.

Your sock is gorgous! As far a the kitchner stitch goes I have found that if you have someone read the steps outloud to you as you stitch it is much simpler to accomplish.In, fact the same goes for any complicated stitch -say the first few rows of lace knitting.I love Chicago-are there any knitting shops around the Magnificent Mile area????Pat

I'm doing my first socks too...both at once, toe up, in the Queen Kahuna manner. It's empowering! As for sock yarn that's masculine enough, how about Opal's Crocodile? I'm knitting in the browns, and I think it's sufficiently butch that my hubby would wear it, but then, he's very in touch with his fem side. ;-)

Gorgeous sock. I think my husband might even wear one of those!! He generally doesn't like hand knits as he finds them unsophisticated. He does like Hugo Boss and has friends who tell him when its going on sale. Now if there was a line of Hugo Boss sock yarn....

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